Our focus is to get off to a good start: Dhoni

Toss and pitch were distinctly missing from his utterances as Indian cricket captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni turned his focus on performance of the players, asking them to make themselves count in the limited-overs series against Pakistan starting in Bangalore on Tuesday.

India take on Pakistan in two Twenty20s and three ODIs. The first T20 will be held at the Chinnaswamy Stadium.

The under-fire Indian skipper, who drew flak during the lost Test series against England for his over-reliance on domestic conditions and the toss, desisted from talking about conditions and focused solely on preparations.

"It will be important to see how individuals perform, what kind of a platform they give each other. The part-timers also need to contribute at the same time. Both teams are evenly placed and the team that plays better will win," he said at the pre-match press conference.

"We do not set a target before the start of the match, but plan it after every five to six overs. Our first focus is to get off to a good start," he told reporters.

Reflecting on the drawn two-match T20 series against England, Dhoni said the games have helped the players get into the groove.

"T20 is slightly different. You have to be a bit unorthodox and try a few different things. It is different from the longer format. So I think, a few games will give us time to get into the groove and get out of it," he said.

"We have often seen in one-off T20 games, sides use it as a warm-up game going into the series or as entertainment at the end of the series.

"There are a few sides that have very different teams (for different formats). There are T20 specialists who play only T20 matches, but if it's a one-off game, they might not fly down those specialists. At least two games give some time to adjust to the format," Dhoni added.

Pakistan captain Mohammad Hafeez said that his team has a good mixture of fast and spin bowlers who can pose problems to the Indian batsmen in the five-match limited over series, starting with the Twenty20 encounter.

"Indian batting is well known all over the world for being extremely good. But winning or losing does not depend only on batting, as bowling also plays a major role. Our team has good batsmen and bowlers. Our bowlers can negotiate the strong Indian batting line-up," Hafeez told reporters.

Hafeez said the team has prepared well for the series and is looking forward to the match at the Chinnaswamy Stadium. "We are very much ready and looking for positive results for our country," he said.

Hafeez said the selectors wanted to give opportunities to youngsters who have done well in the last couple of years at the domestic level. He said: "It will be a good experience for them in India because the crowds are always good. So the pressure is always there to perform, but one has to handle it. Our team is a mixture of experience and youth. We have Shahid Afridi, Shoaib Malik and Umar Akmal."

On Afridi's poor run with the bat, Hafeez said there is no doubt that in the recent past he has not done well, but is still a match winner and added that Saeed Ajmal is bowling very well at the moment and getting the results for Pakistan.

"We want him to stay at his peak and don't want to put too much pressure on him. At the same time, other bowlers also have take wickets to give confidence to him," he said.